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Monday, March 7, 2016

Family Pizza Night

If your family is anything like ours, then pizza night has been a tradition in your household your entire life. When I was little, my grandparents owned the bowling alley in my hometown and I can't even begin to tell you how many evenings I spent behind the counter, sitting on my grandpa's lap, eating pizza and watching the bowlers. Monday night at the bowling alley was my favorite - it was men's league night and my dad, my uncles and my grandpa all bowled that night. I used to hop from lane to lane, feeling like a tiny celebrity because everyone there knew my name. If a ball got stuck or the pins didn't reset properly, I got to go in the back with my grandpa and watched in awe as he fixed the giant whirling machines. The place smelled like lane oil and pizza. There were nudey cards on the counters, pitchers of beer and dollar bills. Old Time Rock and Roll was ALWAYS playing on the jukebox and the pool tables were always full. I was little, but Monday nights at the bowling alley made me feel like I was getting a little glimpse into a secret grown-up world.

In college, pizza night became a standard Monday night tradition after dancing the night away at our favorite bar. My roommates and I would dip our pizza in ranch dressing as we lounged on the couch in our pajamas and laughed late into the evening watching Sex & The City, Dawson's Creek or the Simpsons. While Ryan and I were dating, we took pizza night up a notch! We took a pizza-making class at a local cooking school and our pizza night evolved into something pretty elaborate. We would make our own pizza dough, tomato sauce and pesto. We carefully selected all our favorite gourmet toppings like goat cheese, roasted red peppers and locally-made prosciutto. We used a fancy pizza stone and learned how to grill pizza on the BBQ. We topped our pizza with fresh parmesan, perfectly wilted spinach or even an egg! It was an ordeal and took all night long to prep all the ingredients, make the dough and cook the pizzas.

Once we had kids, we no longer had the time or energy to put that much effort into our pizza nights, but we still love keeping up the pizza night tradition. Now, pizza night is Friday night for us and while it's different, there's nowhere else I'd rather be. We don't have goat cheese, pitchers of beer or nudey cards, but we have pepperoni and sippy cups of milk! We have dance parties, family time and bucketloads of ranch dressing to dip our pizza into! Pizza night is fun and easy and relaxing. It's time spent laughing and goofing off before heading downstairs to snuggle up on the couch and watch a movie together as a family. It's the end of a long week and a highlight of an otherwise hard day. Pizza's the one meal we can all agree on (this pizza is our favorite).

So cool that they owned the local bowling alley! What special memories you have from there. Love the little Sara pictures!!! Look at you guys with your fancy pizza making skills. I’m impressed! But amen to not having time for making elaborate dinners!! And pizza is just not pizza without ranch dressing to dip it in. Cute pictures!! Pizza night for us is Little Ceasars! My stomach is so sensitive to red sauce and makes me sick. However, Little Ceasars is one that does not make me sick so we stick with it!!

LOVE that description of the bowling alley! I feel like I was there too, even though I'm pretty sure I never even tried bowling till middle school. Such an evolution of pizza nights. Wish I could get a sampling of those make your own pizza from scratch days. Sounds delicious! We're all about Round Table or the pre-made refrigerated dough from Trader Joe's over here. Plus mushrooms. Always mushrooms ;)

I never ate much pizza growing up but my husband is a huge fan and ever since we got married, I have been eating it a few times a month! I will keep my eyes peeled for that Red Baron one in stores. I love the bowling alley story! I have always wanted to see what things look like behind the lanes

The way you talked about the bowling alley brought back so many memories of when my Nannan was on a bowling league and I would tag along when I was little. Love me some Red Baron pizza and it really is the best way to end a long week!

I love your pizza night memory at the bowling alley, that is so awesome! :)

When I was younger, we would have pizza on most Friday nights (or McDonald's or fish fry) & that was always pretty big cuz my mom wouldn't let us drink soda with anything else but pizza or McDonald's & even then, it had to be Sprite, root beer or orange soda. I always got excited about my root beer & pizza, that's for sure.

My grandma ran a bowling alley, too!! I was too young to remember, but I love when my mom tells stories about it. Sunday was always pizza night growing up. My mom always said she'd cooked all week, and Sunday was her night off. We'd always order from the same joint, and always get the same pizzas with the special garlic ranch dipping sauce.

We have pizza every so often but I really need to make it more of a tradition! Not only is it so easy to throw in the oven on a Friday night but having family dinner followed by family movie night sounds pretty great right now!Oh and by the way, I am totally a ranch dipper too. There is no other way!

Oh I love this! We have a family pizza night every week, too (or two or three...ahem)! This is such a cute presentation of your weekly ritual. As your kids get older, it will be fun to go back to making pizzas and letting them choose toppings and create their own.

Friday night is usually pizza night at our house too! I love not having to worry about preparing something, or carting the kids out to a restaurant. Also, I went to your grandparents' bowling alley a few times growing up! We also frequented the PH buffet whenever we visited ;) Lots of good memories in that town!